Any former or current RAs (Resident Advisor)?

[Iron Man]

Hello, I'd like to get some feedback from any RAs that are applying, or have applied, to medical school. Recently I was accepted for a RA position for the upcoming academic year, although I'm still not entirely sure if I want to do it. Apparently if I take the position, I won't be able to continue my current research job. In addition, I may have to cut down on my volunteer work, because supposeably, the RA work can be incredibly time consuming. Would any of you say the RA position was beneficial for med school preparation, at least indirectly? If you've already gone through the application process, did your interviewers make any comments about being a RA, or seemed impressed by your experiences?

Thanks, I look forward to your responses.

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[ADeadLois]

Being an RA is as time-consuming as you make it. You'll notice that there's a wide range of commitment to the job. Some people make it their life's work to interact with their residents and plan all sorts of cool events. I also worked with RAs who literally did nothing all year. There's very little accountability.

My day-to-day responsibilities as an RA were rather minimal. It's busy towards the beginning when you have to check people in, and similarly towards the end for check-out. If you're not "on-duty", then it's your job just to interact with your residents and plan floor events. When you're "on-duty", you just need to be around and deal with any issues that come up. There's also some random paperwork throughout everything.

It's definitely a positive on your med school application, as it shows maturity, responsibility and leadership. I had some interviewers who were past RAs and we traded stories. It can definitely help as a conversation starter.

 

[dragonark]

Hello, I'd like to get some feedback from any RAs that are applying, or have applied, to medical school. Recently I was accepted for a RA position for the upcoming academic year, although I'm still not entirely sure if I want to do it. Apparently if I take the position, I won't be able to continue my current research job. In addition, I may have to cut down on my volunteer work, because supposeably, the RA work can be incredibly time consuming. Would any of you say the RA position was beneficial for med school preparation, at least indirectly? If you've already gone through the application process, did your interviewers make any comments about being a RA, or seemed impressed by your experiences?

Thanks, I look forward to your responses.

Not having been an RA at all...

I would just like to say that research experience >> RA experiences for any of the majors. There's plenty to talk about for research, esp if you can get some pubs and posters (to real conferences and journals, not that undergrad stuff).

 

[PBandJ]

Hello, I'd like to get some feedback from any RAs that are applying, or have applied, to medical school. Recently I was accepted for a RA position for the upcoming academic year, although I'm still not entirely sure if I want to do it. Apparently if I take the position, I won't be able to continue my current research job. In addition, I may have to cut down on my volunteer work, because supposeably, the RA work can be incredibly time consuming. Would any of you say the RA position was beneficial for med school preparation, at least indirectly? If you've already gone through the application process, did your interviewers make any comments about being a RA, or seemed impressed by your experiences?

Thanks, I look forward to your responses.

I was an RA and I applied to med school after my time as an RA. It definitely came up on a few interviews (mainly b/c it was one of my key leadership experiences as I did it for 2 years + 1 summer), and most of my interviewers were impressed with all the tasks I took on during undergrad (planned lots of events, set up tutoring for students, etc). Like ADeadLois said, the responsibilities vary from school to school. You should talk to some current or former RAs at your specific school to find out more. I had a few RA friends who applied to med school during their RA time (and also quite a few who were med studentd during RA time). They got very stressed at times, but said it was still worth it in the end. At my school, RA compensation was completely free housing and meals for a full year.

 

[CareBear84]

I don't post very often, so i'm still getting my feet wet so bare with me...but in my senior year I was an RA as well as held a research position, so in terms of time it can be done. But as the previous poster mentioned it really depends on the demands of the dorm, and the staff you work with. If you're going to be an RA for a frosh dorm, then yeah you'll be busy planning activities, meetings not to mention handling that 1st year rush of freedom and all that comes with that, which can get kinda hectic. However if you get to RA for an upperclassmen dorm, then things are usually more laidback besides the occasional roommate issues and unlocking doors for the umpteenth time.

If your decision has to come down to research vs. RA job, I think it can go either way. If you really enjoy your research and feel like it's gonna take you where you need to go, then def stick with it. However I loved my RA experience, and if you really make the most of your time with your students then i would think most med schools would like that as well...shows you have some personable traits (but i'm about to apply so we'll see if that's true)

Yet most pre-med folk will tell ya, if your stats aren't in order it doesn't matter either way....but i say if you think it will be a good time then go for it! Most of the RA's i knew who applied got in, and thought RAing helped them stand out a bit on apps

 

[Beckie1022]

I was an RA for 3 of my 4 undergraduate years and did research one summer. No pubs, but a good LOR. Research was okay, but I definitely had a lot more RA stuff to talk about in my apps and interviews. I had a freshmen floor for two years and did two hospital trips for alcohol poisoning, some emergency contraceptive counseling and an ER trip for a ping-pong injury (which sounds ridiculous, but turned out to be pretty serious). My stats were fine, so the RA position was a great way to demonstrate that I had the whole people-skills-desire-to-help-others thing as well as time management and ability to respond to crises while sleep-deprived. I say unless you want to go into research, the RA job is the way to go.

 

[XildUpNawth]

My husband and I are graduate resident tutors at MIT, which is like being an RA but they have grad students living with and advising undergrads. It has been a very fun and rewarding experience, even though I have been working full time in research and completing my pre-reqs in a post-bacc program in the evenings.

It's really nice to be surrounded by other students at home, since at work I'm just a "worker." I have also enjoyed counseling the students as they go through the growing-up stuff I went through a few years ago. It not only helps them, but helps you put all your hard work in perspective and see how far you've come.

We're lucky in that there's 2 of us responsible for 30 students, and our students are very well-behaved and sort of quiet. It would be a different story if we were busting up 4 a.m. drug parties all the time or something.

The main drawback I've found is the unpredictability of when you're going to be needed for a crisis/emergency. If a student falls and busts their chin open at 3 a.m. and I have to be at work the next morning at 9 a.m., I still have to make sure they get to the hospital and know how to fill out the paperwork and everything. But, my take on it is that it's going be like this when you're a doc and when you have your own kids, so you might as well get used to it.

You should be sure to look into the liability you're signing yourself up for. Some schools protect their res life staff very well if anything like a personal injury or negligience law suit comes up, and others would hang you out to dry in order to escape a large payout. This varies widely school-to-school, and you should make sure there's a formal policy in place for how responsibility is assigned if a student in your area of oversight gets hurt.

But other than that, I say do it. It has been a wonderful experience for me. I think it has also helped demonstrate my committment to community involvement, zeal for unpredictability, and my ability to tolerate a lack of barrier between work and home. These are pretty important when you're a practicing doc.

 

[Iron Man]

Thanks everyone. The responses have been very insightful.

 

[phishee]

I was an RA for two years, one year for freshmen and one year for upperclassmen. If you are going to be an RA in a freshmen dorm, it can be very time consuming and stressful. But like others said, some RAs do nothing. I just wanted to say that it is possible to do research and volunteer work as an RA. I started my volunteer position as an RA and I kept another on-campus job. And I had a cool story to put on some of my secondaries and good anecdotes for my interviews.
However, I had a really bad experience trying to study for the MCAT as an RA to freshmen. I did not have enough time and energy to put into it and completely bombed the first time I took it. If you find that the position takes a lot of your time, take the MCAT in the summer!
Good luck!

 

[RSAgator]

I only did it for a semester because I had already signed a lease for the following semester, but it was easily one of the best experiences I've had in college, and possibly one of the best experiences of my life. Like most things in life it will be what you make of it, but for me my RA experience was made up of many small experiences. You take on a lot of responsibility and depending on the dorm (freshman vs etc.) you'll have a ton of people who really look up to you and who really will look to you for guidance and in both interviews and just conversation in general you'll find yourself saying "oh yea, i remember when I was an RA..." As has been said, the job is very end heavy. It's a lot of work setting the dorm up, and a lot of work when everyone moves out, but in between it's really just the occasional night on duty, the occasional incident (and subsequent incident report), and setting up events which really depends on you. It's a great experience, and if you can balance it with research and/or other activities you'd like to do then do it. If however it comes down to being an RA or one of those other activities it's a much different choice, but I wouldn't be so quick to say that a research experience will be greater than an RA experience. Once again it depends on what you might get out of both.

 

[The Doctor]

Hey, I was also an RA for two years and in charge of an entire building for one year. I also worked in a research lab during that time, sometimes up to 25 hours a week while juggling other activities - so they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. I take it that your university has a policy against having an additional job while working as an RA? Perhaps you can ask into the exact policy. It may be that you can work up to fifteen hours a week at a second job, or you may be able to trade your research job into an academic position where you get credit rather than wages.
The experience is definitely worth it; I feel like it is a good primer for someone going into medicine because you get the chance to take care of other people and look out for their well-being over a long period of time. At the same time, it can be strenuous ... I remember there were nights when I had to call the paramedics for multiple students with alcohol poisoning, while windows were being punched out, and it was impossible to breathe due to fire extinguishers going off - all while I had an exam the next day. Thankfully, these nights are sporadic and fairly rare, though it definitely can hurt your grades if you put in too much time. Like an above poster said, it really takes as much time as you want to put into it. If you expect to do a good job, it's a large commitment - it would be good to set limits as to how much you can do. Also, if you are worried about the time, it is easier to be an RA for upperclassmen rather than freshmen.

 

[tiddelypom]

I'm an RA in an all-frosh dorm right now, and am just finishing up the application process. Being an RA can be time-consuming and unpredictable, for sure, but you get to help with some interesting, very REAL stuff (eating disorders, interpersonal conflicts, comforting people through the death of a family member, etc. etc.) and build people skills that TOTALLY contribute more to being a good doctor than just about anything you could get from a second year of research. If you're confident of that, it's not hard to convince the schools in your apps and interviews that being an RA is worth it.

That said, I kept my part-time research position throughout this year and just had a very forgiving supervisor for those days/weeks when I was traveling for interviews or up several nights in a row helping residents. Decide how much you want to be an RA and then follow your instinct.

on another note, it sucked having to travel for interviews during my year as an RA because I would just be out of town (one time, for an entire week) and thus unavailable for residents. Luckily I had co-RAs on other floors that were supportive and helped pick up the slack. BUT it was great from another perspective because the pre-med students on my floor would ask me all kinds of questions about the application and interview process and they even put up a map of where in the country I was interviewing that week. In the months when I was interviewing, I'd put up a sample interview question on the hall whiteboard for residents to answer each week (like "where do you see yourself in 10 years?" or "what makes you tick?"). Then when I got in to UVA, they put up "congratulations" flyers all over the dorm with a picture of my head imposed on a body wearing scrubs, and they started calling me "docta." Good times.

Anyways, my occasional struggles to get everything done were exchanged for being a very helpful resource for my residents that wanted to learn about applying to med school. It made the process seem possible and more manageable for those students who were anxious about trying the pre-med track.